"Not only is the map data open," Meech said at the State of the Map 2010 conference in Girona, Spain, "but also this beta map stack uses popular open source mapping software, including Mapnik for tile rendering, TileCache for caching, and Nominatim for geo-coding and search. We are now employing developers to contribute back to these projects for the benefit of the community."

Meech said that AOL believes that open source is the future for local and mapping applications. The company also announced the creation of a $1 million OpenStreetMap investment fund to support the growth of open source mapping in the US.